Generally, a pedal for a bicycle comprises a pedal shaft fixed to a crank arm and a pedal body supported rotatably to the pedal shaft, the pedal body carrying front and rear foot bearing plates through inner and outer plates so that a cyclist pedals the bicycle through the foot bearing surfaces at both the front and rear plates.
The conventional pedal has narrow foot bearing surfaces which are parallel to the axis of the pedal shaft. When the cyclist places his foot on the foot bearing surface of the front plate for pedaling, the root of his big toe (near the sesamoid), is positioned on the surface but the roots of other toes are not because the roots of all the toes are disposed in an arch, so that his treading force is transmitted to the pedal collectively through the root of the big toe. This creates a problem in that a cyclist, especially when pedaling the bicycle against a heavy load such as in a cycling race or on an upward slope, will be fatigued in a short time. Even when he shifts his foot on the foot bearing surface longitudinally of the pedal, the same problem as the above occurs. In either case, it is impossible to fit the roots of all the toes to the foot bearing surface and transmit the distributed treading force to the pedal.
In order to overcome the above problem, a pedal has been proposed having a flat type foot bearing body. This pedal, however, has an increased weight and is expensive to produce, and therefore does not provide a fundamental solution for the problem.